partickthedog

Sad news indeed and thoughts go out to his family. Am I right in recalling that Willie was given a lap of honour (or at least an extended round of applause) at Firhill after winning something (perhaps most likely the Commonwealth Championship)? I have an even more vague recollection that there was a proposal to stage one of his boxing contests at Firhill, but I do not think that it ever came to anything.

Assuming that we regard Stanway, Mackenzie and Diack as regular members of the first team squad, I suppose that you also have some of the other younger players (Loney, Horn etc) who have filled out the bench for our recent games. It is, however, difficult to imagine such inexperienced players being pitched in for any substantial part of a game that is in any way meaningful in terms of league position and prize money. There might also potentially be a slight question mark, even if a game is totally meaningless for us. Just say that come the last day of the season, we are either 4 points ahead of, or 4 points behind, Airdrie (ie the final result cannot affect our league position) and we are playing Dundee United, who have had a slight stumble and are only 2 points ahead of Raith Rovers. Is there any issue over competitive integrity, and could we be sanctioned for turning out a severely weakened team and handing Dundee United the automatic promotion place?

It was encouraging to see Fitzpatrick just about back to his best yesterday. Very unlucky with the deflected shot which hit the crossbar and he pulled a good save out of their keeper in the second half. Several other runs and crosses, and one of the cynical fouls on him when in full flight would certainly have attracted a blue card and consequent sinbinning if that idea had seen the light of day!

Only fair to Zander that I should update my halftime post. He became much more involved in the second half and turned in an excellent performance. Stanway was also impressive throughout.

Very strange pitch and the wind does not make it any easier. Raith look more confident in how to pass the ball, but we have put together some decent moves too. Unlucky with the one that hit the bar, but they have had some chances as well. Level about right. Mitchell very sound. Difficult to comment on other players as the game so lacking in continuity. Stanway showing up well and Zander perhaps finding it hard to work his way into the game, which is fully understandable.

Apologies. Got my lefts and rights mixed up. I meant to put Aero on the right, especially as he has some experience of being right back and might even get the chance to do some long throws. I had not realised that all 3 of my centre backs are right-footed. I appreciate that could make the back line somewhat unbalanced.

I think that technically he was the second player involved. The third was Andy Dowie who was judged rather less harshly as he was younger and less experienced at the time.

I would quite like a combination of your personnel with Laukat's formation, ie Mitchell McBeth Neilson Muirhead McMillan McInroy Stanway Milne Robinson Fitzpatrick Graham Only drawback is absence of Neilson may leave centre midfield a little lightweight.

To be fair, it would be somewhat difficult not to spot Stevie Fulton. The third member of the trio redeemed himself with the promotion clinching goal at Falkirk in 2013 (Chris Erskine's memorable sequel was merely the icing on the cake).

OK. Less than 24 hours to go till kick off, so I will bite. What do folk think about the game tomorrow?

Surely that has to be Jim Duffy (based on his current appearance and then subtracting 40 years. He actually has not changed that much).

That is a brilliant article, diligent research and a fun and fact filled read. Congratulations to the Thistle Archive and of course to Brian Graham. I must confess that when signed I thought that he was a journeyman pro who might give us a couple of years of reasonable end of career service, progressively moving more and more to the bench. Glad to have been proved totally wrong.

That is absolutely fantastic. Great work and brilliant memories. I especially like it when a non-standard goal scorer made a special habit of banging them in against a particular team. Step forward Scott Chaplain for his Hogan against Clyde in 2007-2008!

I can also remember Brian apparently scoring 3 away to Inverness in a 3-3 draw a couple of seasons back. I presume that one of them must have been re-assessed as an own goal.

Compliments to both teams for producing a reasonably exciting game with a bit of quality here and there despite the difficult windy conditions. Not sure how only 2 goals were scored. Both teams struck the woodwork at least twice and there were numerous saves, blocks and goal line clearances. Draw a very fair result. I agree that we need to find a better way of managing the game towards the end. Rather too many rushed clearances and general turnovers of possession. Although I had selected Stanway over McInroy, Kris Doolan had other ideas, and to be fair McInroy was our best player in the first half. Milne was excellent throughout.

I am presuming that it will be the same team as last week. The only debate would seem to be as to whether Stanway retains his place or McInroy comes back in. For all sorts of reasons my preference would be for Stanway. He was a little rusty in the early part of last week’s match, but came on to a good game after that, and I think that it would be beneficial to maintain that momentum. At least McInroy should be able to make a more positive impact off the bench than Alston managed. Muirhead came across well on the podcast, but is clearly carrying an injury, and one wonders how long that can continue. It would be helpful if O’Reilly and Williams could come back into the picture sooner rather than later.

Could we borrow your ship to cross the Forth? Might inspire us to our Forth win in a row. Apologies. Coat fetched.

Last week was my first match thread start for this season, and resulted in a steady win. Cannot remember when my debut was.

No one dares to suggest that Kris Doolan might perhaps be a better manager than Ian McCall and/or possibly had a smaller budget than Raith Rovers in case they trigger a repetitive mega-thread.

Sign him!

A supplementary question, which as Fawlty says, maybe Tom Hosie or others more well informed about the women's team can answer. In the first part of the season, more than half of our games are against teams "on our level", ie part-time. I am certainly not saying that these are easy games, they obviously are very competitive and the results are usually very close, even though we come out on top a commendable number of times. Is it easier physically and psychologically for the team to raise themselves to take on the challenge of playing the full-time or hybrid teams, when these games are interspersed with games against our fellow part-time teams? I can imagine that having to reach up a level for ten games in a row is a bit like having to sit a tough exam every week, ie it begins to wear you down.

Which in a perverse sort of way works in our favour. He does enough good things often enough to be on balance an asset for us at our level. If he did these good things on a far more frequent and reliable basis, he would be playing at a much higher level. Presumably Norwich thought that based on his ability he had at least the potential to be an English Championship player.

Others have already commented on how we failed to take advantage of the extra man. One specific question I have is as regards defending corners and also free kicks near our box. Why did we bring everyone back and invite more pressure onto ourselves? Even to have had one player upfield would have forced Inverness most likely to withdraw two of their own players to guard against a potential breakaway. PS Spandau got there first!

Woodstock Jag will not be happy that we have been forced to increase the alphabetical spread of the first letters of the team surnames. However, in the absence of McInroy, I think that bringing in Stanway is the best choice.

McInroy out means at least one change to the starting 11. As Banzo is also out, the obvious (to me) choice is Stanway who has been unlucky to have less game time recently. The alternative might be Alston. However I think that Stanway. would be more involved in the game and I can see him combining well with Neilson. Keep the McBeth Muirhead centre back partnership.